Chandigarh

On Wednesday morning we left Amritsar by taxi for a 3 1/2 hour drive to Chandigarh. Whilst this was largely a staging post en route to Shimla, we were interested to see it because it is supposed to be a very a-typical Indian city - planned as a new town, commissioned by Nehru and planned by Le Corbusier in the 50s/60s. It’s built to a grid plan and divided into 56 sectors; the roads are tree-lined and there are public parks everywhere, so it felt like a very green city and much, much cleaner than Amritsar. It is now the capital of not one, but two states, Punjab and Haryana. It boasts the highest per capita income of any city in India.

We arrived in town around lunchtime, so were able to enjoy the afternoon walking down through the Zakir Husain Rose Garden, Leisure Valley and Bougainvillea Park, passing some of Le Corbusier’s architecture en route - not to everyone’s taste.

Then to Nek Chand’s rock garden. According to Wikipedia, this is the second most visited site in India after the Taj Mahal! - we find that difficult to believe but it was certainly intriguing. Nek Chand moved to India from Pakistan during Partition and arrived in Chandigarh in 1955. He worked as a roads inspector for the Public Works Department but in his spare time collected materials from demolition sites around the city and used them to create a rock garden in a forested gorge within the city. It was public land and his work was illegal but he was able to keep it hidden for 18 years until discovered by the authorities in 1975, by which time it had grown to cover over 13 acres. After much wrangling, it was decided to adopt it as a public space in 1986 and he was given a team of 50 labourers to carry on with the project. It’s entirely wacky but intriguing with lots of labyrinthine twists and turns, waterfalls and endless statues of people and animals all created from waste materials - broken tiles, sanitary ware, plug sockets, cables etc. Some photos below, which will hopefully make a bit more sense now you’ve read the above!